Welcome

Hi, I’m Kalea Chapman and you’ve reached the web page for my private practice.

Let me just share a little bit about my practice from a more personal perspective. This is about who I work well with and how I work. If you feel marginalized in any way, we may well get along. That could be in terms of a traumatic upbringing to which no one can relate. It could be due to a temperamental difference — being very shy or volatile. It could be because you or your parents were born outside this country, and though it’s home, you just see things a little differently. It could be due to sexual preference. It could be that you dare don’t tell people how depressed you are, partly to spare them the trouble, but also to spare yourself the unhelpful things you expect they’ll say.

For the most part I call the people I work with clients. (I dislike “patient” because it’s from the medical model.) I like client because it’s more collaborative, and psychotherapy is about relationship. I’m not going to look down on you, knowing exactly how you need to be fixed. I don’t even know if there is a “fix”, but I know people benefit greatly from psychotherapy.

You can think of psychotherapy as a bit like orthodontic braces. It hurts at first, it’s sore. It’s awkward and takes getting used to. From day to day, week to week, you don’t see much progress. But the braces are there, every day, making consistent effort. And when they come off — wow. It’s amazing what you can do with consistent effort over time. In a similar way, therapy is about a consistent effort over time.

I guess where the orthodontics analogy falls apart is that orthodontics is fairly mechanical. I would imagine it’s pretty straightforward how things proceed. Psychotherapy is anything but. While sitting at the orthodontist’s office can be quite uncomfortable, it’s nowhere near as vulnerable as sitting in front of a therapist can be. While straightening teeth ought to be orderly, psychotherapy can be a messy and chaotic endeavor. The person in my chair needs to be patient, empathic, okay with a little mess, and extraordinarily kind.

I have a lot of other interests and thoughts about things like psychotherapy, happiness, mindfulness. If you’re interested you can read about those at one of my blogs.

Thanks for stopping by!

Kalea Chapman, PsyD
(323) 559-4800
kaleachapman @ gmail.com